


Never Better

by riddlesinthedark11



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-08
Updated: 2015-11-08
Packaged: 2018-04-30 13:29:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5165549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riddlesinthedark11/pseuds/riddlesinthedark11
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It has been five years since the end of the war and Hermione Granger is in hiding. On the night of the 5th anniversary celebration of Lord Voldemort's defeat, she pays a visit to London and encounters the last person she would expect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Better

**Author's Note:**

> Woohoo, second fic! There's magic this time, but it's still not canon-compliant. Hope you guys enjoy and as usual I do not pretend to own Harry Potter.

_Hermione wrung her hands nervously as she waited for her parents to come to the door. It had been years since she last saw them, but she was certain she could undo the memory charm she had cast._

_The door opened and her mother and father stood there, beaming at her with love in their eyes._

_“Oh, my darling, how we’ve missed you!” her mother exclaimed, reaching out to pull her daughter into a hug. Hermione hugged her back with all her might, overwhelmed at being with her parents again, but her mind was racing. She had no idea how her mother could have possibly remembered her. She had covered her tracks well; no one knew that her parents were in Australia except for Ron and Harry. Besides, she was the only person who could undo the memory charm._ How on earth do they know me? _she wondered._

_Just then, her mother’s embrace began to tighten. The circle of her arms around Hermione’s middle became smaller and smaller until she could barely breathe._

_“Mother...please...let go...” Hermione managed to say. Her vision was going funny due to lack of oxygen._

_“Don’t worry Hermione—everything will go back to the way it should be.” No. Her mother never called her Hermione. Something was very, very wrong._

_“You see,” her father said, stepping forward for the first time, “you don’t belong with us anymore. We have a new life here and you are not part of it!” Her father’s face purpled with  
rage and he snatched her from her mother’s asphyxiating embrace to shake her violently by the shoulders._

_“Don’t come back here ever again! Do you hear me? You filthy, faithless, little—”_

_“Daddy?”_

_Hermione was released, but the speaker was blocked by her parents’ frames._

_“Mommy, daddy, what is happening?”the little voice asked again. Her parents turned to address the speaker and Hermione gasped in shock. Standing in the doorway was a little girl with unruly brown curls and rather large front teeth. She looked worriedly from her mother to her father until her mother picked her up and cooed, “Nothing, my love. Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it. Someone has simply ended up at the wrong address.”_

_Hermione’s mother walked away with the little girl in her arms and Hermione watched, bewitched, as they left the hallway. She desperately wanted to believe that her parents were making a mistake, and that they would come to their senses, but as she looked around what parts of the house she could see, it was evident that this girl was their daughter._

_And that was not about to change._

_As soon as mother and child were out of sight, Hermione’s father rounded on her again. She whimpered in fear under his gaze as he stepped forward to force her out of the house._

_“No, father! It’s me, it’s Hermione! Please, you’re making a mistake!” she screamed, trying in vain to keep herself in the doorway, in her parents’ lives..._

_“Oh, I think that it is you who is making a mistake. You are nothing to this family, and I am going to make certain that you never darken our doorstep again.”_

_Hermione tried to scream, but her cry was choked off. Her father’s hands were latched around her throat and she couldn’t breathe and her mind was going foggy and he was squeezing...squeezing..._

“Father!” Hermione woke with a scream, clutching her sheets to her chest as she bolted upright in bed. Five years had passed since the end of the war. Five years of solitude. Five years of fresh hell every night. And it never got better.

She sat for a few minutes to slow her breathing, still gripping the sheets like a lifeline. Her nightmares were almost always about her parents hating her, replacing her...The sad thing was, the visions weren’t much different from the reality.

Five years ago, after Voldemort was defeated, they all returned from Hogwarts carrying more grief than should be experienced in a lifetime. Hermione spent a month recovering at the Burrow with Harry, Ron and the Weasley family. After a few weeks, she couldn’t bear it any longer. The air itself was choked with heartbreak and longing for lost loved ones. It was suffocating. Every day she spent surrounded by the gloom was a painful reminder of the family she too had lost.

So, heart despairing at having to leave behind loved ones yet again, even if just for a little while, Hermione left for Australia and her parents.

The memory charm she had cast was reparable. She had made sure of it. Although she knew her parents could never truly understand what she underwent in the time they had been influenced by the spell, Hermione let herself hope that lifting it and seeing them again would ease some of the consuming ache she had felt since the war. Since before the war.

Instead, seeing her parents again only tore open another hole in her damaged heart. 

She fled Australia only hours after arriving. When she returned to the Burrow, now the only home she could turn to, she couldn’t bring herself to step back into the smothering atmosphere of loss. She carried enough around with her. So without a thought, without a word, without saying goodbye, she turned away from the only people who still cared for her.

For five years, Ron and Harry and nearly the whole wizarding world had searched for her. The lost Golden Girl of Gryffindor, the missing part of the Trio, the heroine who disappeared without a trace. For five years, theory after theory emerged about her whereabouts, her well being and her motives, but they never found her. And for five years, she never went back.

But that was about to change.

In control of herself once more, Hermione got up from her bed and walked to her wardrobe. She dressed modestly, inconspicuously. Tonight she needed to see but not be seen. The wizarding world, distracted by the occasion, would never know that Hermione Granger returned to London on the very night that Voldemort had been defeated, five long years ago. 

♠♠♠♠

The door to the Leaky Cauldron creaked slightly as she pushed it open a fraction, peering around it to see how many people were inside. There was only the old bartender, polishing glasses as dutifully as if the pub had been full to the brim with customers drinking and making merry.

In fact, most everybody was at the site that had been used for the Quidditch World Cup in her fourth year at Hogwarts. Harry and Ron were due to make a speech, she knew. She had read about the celebrations in a flyer pinned to the door of the Leaky Cauldron. The knowledge that everyone she used to know was far away from her, had probably forgotten her by now, was enough to make her push the door the rest of the way open. 

She stepped through the doorway quietly, still wary of being seen by someone of her world. She had been hiding her magic among Muggles for so long that she rarely used it. As soon as the bartender took notice of her, she would step back into the shoes of Hermione Granger, brightest witch of her age and brains of the Golden Trio, and she wasn’t entirely sure she was ready for it. Faltering in the doorway, she contemplated turning around and going back into her self-imposed exile. She hovered for a moment, not even sure herself of what she would choose, when the choice was made for her.

“It can’t be.” 

Hermione whipped her head up at the sound of the bartender’s voice, petrified like a deer in headlights. Her shock was mirrored in the bartender’s face.

“Ms Granger? Is it really you?” Several seconds passed and they just stared at each other. Then, coming back to herself, Hermione raised her wand for the first time in a long time. It was comforting to be holding it again. She was flooded by a sudden surge of memories. Harry and Ron’s faces flashed before her eyes, the lines of bodies in the Great Hall, and, strangely, a vision of Harry’s wand stuck in a troll’s nose. Her magic enveloped her and she felt a sense of warmth surround her that she hadn’t felt since she left the Burrow all those years ago.

“ _Petrificus totalus_ ,” she said softly, directing her wand at the bartender. He began to fall, completely frozen, but she lifted her wand again and made sure that he was sitting comfortably on the ground behind the bar. 

After ensuring that the man was alright, Hermione poured herself a glass of Firewhisky. As it burned a path down her throat, she seated herself at a table in the back to give her a view of the entire pub but conceal her if need be. 

She had yet to shake the constant paranoia that came with five years of hiding from her past.

While she sat, back in the world that had brought her both more joy and more sorrow than she ever imagined possible, she wondered whether she could go back. She wondered what would happen if she arrived at the celebrations and saw her friends—her family, now. Would they accuse her of abandoning them? Would they accept her with open arms? Would they let her leave again? Would she _want_ to leave again? For once, Hermione had absolutely no idea. There was no book on all the shelves in the world that could help her. This was something she would have to decide on her own. 

One thing was certain, though. Whether they were happy to see her or not, they would ask about her parents. Above all else, that scared her. She knew, deep down, that she couldn’t stay away forever, but she was not ready to relive the loss of her family. Perhaps in one year, or five, or ten, she would go back and explain everything, surround herself in magic again, and give herself another chance. But it would not be today.

Hermione closed her eyes and sunk back into her chair, willing herself to forget everything for a minute. In a minute, she would go back to hiding, but for now—

She jolted up, eyes flying open, wand at the ready. The bartender was where she had left him but she was sure she had heard a sound. She scanned the room for any indication that someone was there. Her eyes landed on the door, which was being pushed slowly open. She stood up, pressing herself flat against the wall, and pointed her wand at the intruder. When the door was open wide enough for her to have a clear shot, she yelled “ _Stupefy!_ ”

Red light burst from her wand but it was deflected by another spell from the intruder. She made to cast another body-bind curse when the person spoke.

“I mean no harm,” they said, raising their hands to show that they had put their wand away. “I just came for a drink, so whoever else is in this godforsaken place can rest assured that they will leave in one piece. If they would be willing to offer me the same courtesy...”

Hermione gasped and stepped out of hiding in spite of herself. She would know that voice anywhere. It had taunted her for years.

“Malfoy?” Her eyes widened as he pulled back the hood of his cloak to reveal silver-blond hair and grey eyes.

“Granger,” he replied, as stunned as she. There was a moment of silence before he continued.

“It’s nice to finally know that every single person in the wizarding world wants to kill me. You’ve been gone for a while so I couldn’t check you off the list.” He came out of his shock and reverted to the sarcastic humour that he had used all through their years at Hogwarts. The only difference was that he was insulting himself, not Hermione.

She took the easy way out and responded on the offensive as she often did when he had tormented her in their teenage years. She was so surprised to see him that she never even wondered what had happened to him after the war, whether he had changed.

“Well can you really blame me after you treated me like the scum on the bottom of your shoe for seven years?” Hermione accused. Malfoy seemed to crumble at her words. He sunk into a nearby chair and put his head in his hands.

“Please don’t.”

Hermione was confused. The Malfoy she knew would fire right back, not surrender before the battle had really begun.

“What did you say?”

“Please don’t. Please don’t hate me like everyone else. I know you probably think that I don’t even deserve to be free, or living, for that matter, but please, can we forget for a little bit that I was a Death Eater and you were a hero? For once in our lives can we not be at each other’s throats just because we were never allowed to choose a side for ourselves?” he implored, gazing up at her with the look of someone who can’t be broken even once more because they could never be put back together again.

Hermione knew that look. She was certain it was the same one she wore when she had to walk out of her parents’ lives for the last time. 

She made up her mind to hear him out. She didn’t even want to fight with him. It just brought her back to a part of her life she would rather forget. 

“Okay, Malfoy. I’ll pretend that you’re just a young man and I’m just a young woman. I’ll forget about what happened during the war—even before the war. Just tell me one thing.” 

“What do you want to know?” he asked. There was hope in his voice. Only a little, but it was there.

“Why does everyone want to kill you?” She genuinely wanted to know. From the little news she had heard before leaving for Australia, most of Voldemort’s followers had been put in Azkaban. The only ones who were killed had died during the final battle. As far as she knew, Malfoy hadn’t done anything worse than fix the cabinet in the Room of Requirement. He hadn’t even fought much during the battle at Hogwarts.

Malfoy took a deep breath and let it out before answering.

“I was a Death Eater. What do you expect?”

Hermione could sense the lie as it rolled of his tongue. There was more to the story and she knew it. But she knew that Malfoy must have learned to guard his secrets even closer than she did. Maybe one day she would find out, but she knew that right now all he wanted was to forget his past and just be.

She knew because she wanted the exact same thing. So instead of demanding the truth from him, she took all the hurt from their stormy relationship and turned it into a joke. 

“Well, Malfoy, you don’t have to worry about me wanting to kill you. How about if I just turn you into a ferret for old times’ sake and we can call it even.” 

When he lifted his and laughed, she realized it was the first time she had heard that sound in years. Her face broke into a broad grin and as she laughed along with him, they both felt the true meaning of her words. Too many terrible things had happened to both of them to let their mistakes control the rest of their lives. So she had forgiven him, because  
she didn’t think anyone else could understand how alone she was better than he could. Not many people took kindly to Death Eaters these days.

“How about a drink?” she offered, grabbing the bottle of Firewhisky from where she had left it on the table.

“Just one more thing,” he said, already moving to the bar for a glass. 

“What?” 

“My name is Draco.”

♠♠♠♠

A few hours later, they were both quite drunk. Hermione had put on some music from her phone. When Draco asked her what the hell it was, she explained to him—in a fit of giggles, as he had asked her what incantation turned it on—that she had bought it because she had been living with Muggles in the years after the war.  
Once he finally got over how it was powered by a battery of all things, he grabbed her hand and pulled her into a fumbling waltz that in no way went to the music. He spun her around and around and as the song ended and they sat down, she couldn’t stop the silly grin that split her face. Draco looked over at her, adorably confused and drunk.

“What?” he pouted.

“I’m just...happy. If my worst enemy and I can go from spitting insults at each other to getting drunk together then maybe there’s hope for us after all.” She allowed herself to hope that if she and Draco Malfoy could suddenly settle their differences, then she might be able to return to her old life and rebuild it.

Her words seemed to have sobered him. When she met his gaze it was serious.

“You know that after tonight I’m leaving again, right?” he asked. Hermione had known in the back of her mind that he must be running from whatever crime he had committed that made the wizarding world want his head, but she had been hoping to ignore it. She was actually having a good night and this subject reminded her that she had a choice looming over her head: return and try to repair her old relationships or stay in hiding. She sighed.

“I know. And I might have to as well.” He looked surprised at her words.

“You’re on the run, too? What from?”

“Well, I’m not running, exactly. More like hiding. This is the first time I’ve been back in the magical world in five years,” she admitted, looking down to avoid his gaze. Despite her valid reasons, it wasn’t something she was proud of. 

“Lost that Gryffindor courage, did you?” Draco said softly. He wasn’t mocking her in any way. In fact, he said it as if he knew exactly how she felt. “I think we have more in common than you know, little lion.” She lifted her head to look at him. Ironically, he was right. After everything, Draco Malfoy seemed to be the one who understood what she was going through. 

“Do you think we’ll ever go back?” she wondered aloud.

“Home?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “There’s one thing I do know, though.”

“What’s that?” 

“I can’t go back to running. I don’t care if they catch me; it’s no way to live.”

With those words, Hermione was struck with an idea. A way that neither of them had to go back to how they had been living since the war. She rose to her feet and walked to the bar. Draco’s eyes followed her curiously. She pulled the now-sleeping bartender to his feet and wiped his memory of the night after her arrival.

“There we go. A clean slate. No one knows we were here,” she smiled and turned back to Draco.

“So your master plan is to _obliviate_ anyone who has ever met you?” he asked, one eyebrow raised.

“No,” she said, chuckling while pulling on her cloak and handing him his. “You said you can’t go back to running. But how do you feel about traveling?”

“With you?” Hermione nodded and held out a hand to him. He contemplated it, and for a second she wasn’t sure he would take it. Then, before she knew it, she had been swept off her feet and into his arms and they were Apparating away. The last things she heard were his words in her ear.

“Where to first, little lion?”

**Author's Note:**

> So, they're off to see the Wizard! Can they resolve their many issues that easily or were they just really drunk? Who knows. Hope you guys liked it and I'll probably be starting another multi chapter fic at the same time as I'm writing this one so it may only get updated every second week depending on which one people want to see most. Okay I'm done, bye :P


End file.
